An article from the Christian Science Monitor, May 16, 2013, shares a lovely “new-old” idea regarding abundance and how to deal with any sense of lack. To read it from the Monitor where it originally appeared, click here.

A suffering economy, a suffering landscape, a suffering body, the common denominator just might be our thinking! But are we listening for…

The Sound of Abundance

Lots of media attention has been focused on economic crises in the United States lately – from the fiscal cliff to the “sequester” to the debt ceiling. Pundits and politicians are concerned about what will happen to the economy as tax cuts expire or as spending cuts kick in. But while it’s important to understand what’s happening in the news, we can also rely on our universal Father-Mother, God, to tell us where our true source of supply comes from.

Elijah, the prophet, had to exercise this kind of spiritual reliance during a time of extreme drought and famine (see I Kings 18). God spoke to him and told him to let Ahab, the King of Israel, know there would be rain. Elijah obeyed, and said to Ahab, “Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain” (I Kings 18:41). At that point, there was no indication of rain – but Elijah climbed up to Mt. Carmel and directed his servant to look for clouds. Initially, his servant saw nothing, but Elijah commanded him to look again seven times. Sure enough, on the seventh time, his servant saw “a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand.” I Kings goes on to record, “And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.”

Photo courtesy of Adam Robertson

Elijah was so sure that God would break the drought and bring rain that he described it as the “sound of abundance” even before this abundance was evident to a casual observer. Could it be that God’s promise was so tangible to Elijah that he actually heard it before it appeared? He wasn’t listening to famished thoughts of drought, but to the truth of what God was revealing about the continuity of His own abundant goodness. Furthermore, Elijah didn’t waiver in his conviction – even though his servant looked six times and still saw no rain. Elijah clearly felt no apprehension that God wouldn’t come through, and continued to cling to the divine promise of God’s enduring goodness. And when his servant at first saw a “little cloud,” Elijah didn’t limit God’s promise by saying, “Oh, well, God came through but it’s only a little bit of rain.” His example showed that whatever God does must be abundant.Continue Reading

Several years ago while traveling with a dear friend, we happened upon San Juan, Puerto Rico (a beautiful place to visit). At that time there was a magnificent UNESCO exhibit on display. It was one of the highlights of our trip.

Photo of the beauty of Pakistan courtesy of Black Zero

Given the topic this week is all about what God made and how beautifully it is made (or more exactly how “very good”), I thought I would share this piece found on CNN’s Travel Page. Click here for a direct link to 20 World Heritage sites considered to be some of the most beautiful places in the world and notice, many of them include evidence of God’s ultimate creation, you and me.

Jean Todt and kids give a thumbs-up at the Children’s University Annual Summit, OECD in Leipzig, Germany.

When it comes to doing for others, kids often jump in with both feet. Years ago my niece spent her high school spring break helping with the clean up in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. She is still talking about all she learned from that experience. Given that summer is soon upon us and kids will be out of school everywhere within the next few weeks, click here to read a Washington Post article that identifies a great possibility for combining summer youth activities like going to camp, with learning to be a good Samaritan.

This week as we take a look at the importance of prayer, I thought we might also think about what has traditionally backed up and informed our prayers. Although religion and prayer do not have to go hand in hand, historically they have and often times they still do.

On a snowy 20-degree day in December, the visitors shiver as they move among vestiges of a long-closed Pizza Hut on this city’s struggling main street. A salad bar teeters off kilter. Dust collects on the dismantled facade of a soda dispenser. A few bolted-down tables and chairs remain – usable, but only after a good cleaning

Yet none of this bothers the three leaders from the Auburn Seventh-day Adventist Church, who seem warmed by holy fire to carry out their task: Help transform the pizza joint into something with a bit more piety. Their church has reached capacity, having doubled attendance in the past year. So they’ve crossed the Androscoggin River to plant a second church, the Ark, in the heart of one of the nation’s least religious states.

This won’t be worship as usual. Starting early in the new year, a smorgasbord of community services will be served where deep-dish pepperoni used to be the lure. Vegetarian cooking classes and health seminars, hydrotherapy treatments and massage instruction, marriage classes and smoking-cessation clinics – all will be free of charge and led by volunteers. A vegan restaurant will open to bring in revenue. Worship services will begin next spring.

“It’s almost like you have to use a place like a Pizza Hut,” says Tracy Vis, a new member of the Auburn church. “Some people are not going to be comfortable with [traditional church buildings] or traditions. But they’ll come here and listen to these different messages.”Continue Reading

Did you know that there’s a website focused entirely on dealing with pain? While looking for information on this idea of whole person treatment, referred to as bio-psycho-social care, I found the following book review on it. This review is about Stephen Colameco’s Chronic Pain: A Way Out. I have not read Colameco’s book, but was taken with the thorough way in which he looks at treatment for pain.

He obviously spends time focused on the more prevalent ways of dealing with pain, including medical treatment, physical therapy, and surgery. But most importantly I noted that he also includes psychological treatment and the need to look at what the patient isthinking. And I especially loved his last focal point, a focus on spirituality! All of which fit nicely with this week’s focus…

I found this editorial on Healthymuslim.com. It focuses on the insights of Iban al Qayyim as he focuses on the connection between healthy thoughts and bodily actions.

The great scholar Ibn al-Qayyim wrote in his book al-Fawaa’id, under the chapter heading, “The Origin Of All Knowledge and Action” (p.224, Dar un-Nafaa’is 1989):

The origin of all perceived knowledge and chosen action lies in notions and thoughts. For these [both] necessitate imaginations, and imaginations call towards desires and desires necessitate the occurrence of action. The abundant repetition of this [action] then leads to the formation of a habit.Thus, the rectification of all these [subsequent] steps lies in the rectification of the notions and thoughts, and the corruption [in these subsequent steps] lies in the corruption of these [notions and thoughts].

Rectification of thoughts occurs by their being mindful of their Master and Lord, and ascending to Him, revolving around His pleasure and love, for indeed, by Him, the Sublime, is all of rectification. He is the one with all guidance, and by His granting of success is all of right-direction, and in His guarding of His servant is every protection (for the servant) …Continue Reading

“Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.” (Mary Baker Eddy) In NaturalNews is the following article on the connection between our thoughts and our health. If you like what you read, there’s a Part II as well.

Have you ever wondered if there is any scientific evidence supporting the notion of spontaneous remission, faith healing and other described miracles? Until recently there hasn`t been much scientific information to support these claims, but this is not to say that they don`t occur, because they do. There also hasn`t been much information about what we can do to assist in our own healing, until now.

The latest information emerging from the science labs is that we now have the opportunity to play a part in our own healing. According to leading scientists our thoughts can affect our health, both physically and emotionally, and there is data to prove it.

For some of us, even when we realize a certain belief is no longer serving us, we can’t seem to let it go. Change is one of the hardest things we do as humans. Vlad Dolezal has identified a methodology for changing deeply held beliefs. Click here to see his website and the original article I’m sharing with you today.

Elephant keepers in India have an interesting way of keeping their elephants from running away. They tie them to a wooden peg with a rope.

It doesn’t make sense on the surface, since a rope like that has no hope of holding a grown elephant. But ask any elephant keeper and he will chuckle and explain:

When a baby elephant is born, the herder ties it to a peg with a rope. At this point, the rope is strong enough to hold the elephant.

The baby elephant quickly learns that trying to escape the rope is futile. And he keeps that learning with him, even as he grows up and the rope becomes far too weak to hold him.

And like that rope, we often form beliefs that might be useful at first, but then hold us back in life, long after the original reasons are gone.

I won’t go into much detail on why limiting beliefs suck. If you’re reading this, you probably already know that they do! (If not, just google it).

Instead, I’ll get right into how to change them!

So get ready, because soon you will learn how to dissolve emotional superglue, cut off table legs of evidence, and replace limiting beliefs with empowering ones!

What is a belief, exactly?

there is no “true” or “false” with beliefs, only useful and detrimental

a belief is just the best available explanation of the evidence you observe

This time, we’ll dig a bit deeper. And I’ve prepared some pictures to help you understand (behold my artistic skills…)

Think of a belief as a tabletop. The legs are the supporting evidence. And sometimes the legs are even superglued to the floor of your mind with emotions.

(Here in the UK we weirdos call it “maths” because it’s short for mathematics. If that confuses you, just pretend I say “math” throughout this article )

And to break a limiting belief, you will first need to get rid of the superglue, then get rid of the evidence, and only then can you change it.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

Changing your limiting beliefs

Let’s go through this process together. This will work best if you pick a limiting belief, and go through this process with that in mind.

1. Identify a limiting belief

Take a few moments to think about beliefs you hold that might be holding you back.

It can be in the form “I am …” or just about the world in general. As long as you think it might be holding you back, that will work.

Remember, there is no true or false with beliefs. Only useful and detrimental. Don’t worry about “truth”, and instead decide if it’s useful to you, or if a different belief would be more useful.

For example, you might believe that “The recession is a bad time to start a business”. That would definitely be more limiting than “There will always be demand for exceptional products and services.”

Take a few moments to pick a limiting belief. You can still carry on reading if you can’t think of anything, but it would be really helpful if you do.

2. Choose a belief you would like to have instead

This will become important later (when we dislodge the evidence for your old, limiting belief and replace it with evidence for the new one).

I think this step is pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll just give you two examples:

old: “I am unattractive.”
new: “I can attract just the right partner for me.”

old: “I will never earn over $30,000 a year.”
new: “I can earn as much as I want for my ideal life.”

3. Get rid of the emotional superglue

Very often, beliefs have an emotional charge attached to them.

I was at a life coaching seminar recently and I heard a great example of this. We talked about beliefs, and one woman in her forties put up her hand timidly:

“Yes?” Asked the presenter.
“I still believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy,” she piped up.

The presenter dug a bit deeper. It turns out the woman still believed in those things, because it brought her the feelings of:

being in touch with her roots

sharing the culture with other people

And so she held on to it. Note that this was NOT a limiting belief for her. She lived her life quite fine with it.

I just wanted to give you an example of beliefs giving emotional payoffs.

With that in mind, once you’ve identified your limiting belief, think about the emotional payoff it gives you.

For example, thinking you suck at maths might give you:

commiserating with friends who also claim to suck at maths

giving up responsibility for your maths grade

avoiding being called a “geek”

and many others…

The emotional payoff you get is unique to you.

Once you’ve figured out what it gives you, it’s time for the all-important question: Is the emotional payoff worth holding on to this belief?

Take a good few moments to answer this. Because you know what? Sometimes the answer is “yes”. In which case you can stop right there, because no technique (except advanced psychotherapy) will help you change something you don’t want to change.

But let’s say you decide the emotional payoff isn’t really worth the limitation. You decide you want to change!

At this point, you’ve already begun dissolving the emotional superglue. There’s still some left, but every time you remind yourself that you really want to change, it gets weaker.

(Using the Pain and Pleasure Principle might help at this point. It will help you increase the motivation to change and decrease the motivation to stick with your old beliefs.)

4. Re-frame the evidence

Remember how a belief is just the best available explanation for the evidence?

Well, you decide what is the “best” explanation for the evidence! You can easily choose an alternate explanation that doesn’t limit you. And once you do, this new way of thinking about the evidence often makes more sense than the old one!

Let’s go with the tabletop, and re-frame the evidence so it no longer supports “I suck at maths”:

Evidence 1:
I failed the last two testsAlternate explanation:
I haven’t studied properly for them. I used the wrong studying methods.

Evidence 2:
I got an answer wrong in classAlternate explanation:
I was tiredor
Even the best students sometimes get it wrong. Getting an answer wrong is not an indication of maths skills.or
I have become better at maths by stepping up and getting the chance to fail and get feedback.

Evidence 3:
My mother said it’s her genesAlternate explanation:
Robert has parents who claim they suck at maths, yet he’s a maths genius.

Notice how the evidence no longer supports “I suck at maths”?

Some evidence might take a bit of skill to re-frame. But with a bit of practice, you can easily dislodge most evidence for your negative beliefs quickly.

Take a moment now to re-frame the evidence for you own limiting belief. (You’re carrying one in mind as we go along, right?)

Also, sometimes you will find it hard, or even impossible to reframe all of the evidence. That’s ok. As long as you take away as many supporting legs as possible, you will be able to shift the belief with this next step:

5. Find evidence for your new belief

Beliefs have a funny way of operating.

They focus your mind on certain things… so you completely miss things that are inconsistent with those beliefs.

If you believe you’re unattractive, you will notice all the snide remarks and dirty looks – yet completely miss the smiles, greetings and compliments, or just discount them as irrelevant.

Because of this, beliefs automatically snowball. Once a belief gains certain weight, it will start to tack on more and more legs of evidence, and ignore any contrary evidence. So deep-seated beliefs might take several sessions like this, over several days, to get rid of. But the process still works.

In this step, you will actively find all the evidence you can think of to support your new belief!

Think back to all the things that happened in your life, no matter how small or irrelevant they seem, that support it.

The goal here is to establish as many legs as possible. If you get enough evidence, this new belief will blow the old one right out.

And once the new belief become entrenched in your mind, it will start to accumulate even more evidence for itself! Suddenly, the snowballing effect works in your favour!

So take a few moments to remember all the evidence from your life that supports your new belief.

Summary and next actions

Hopefully, you’ve gone through this post with a limiting belief in mind. If you did, you already know how well this method works.

If you couldn’t think of one, that’s ok. You now know what to do the next time you notice one!

To summarize:

Identify a limiting belief

Pick a belief you would like to hold instead

Get rid of the emotional superglue

Cut off the table legs of evidence by reframing them

Gather as much evidence as possible for your new empowering belief

And as you practice this method, it will become ever easier and more effective. You might even start noticing limiting beliefs that your friends hold. Feel free to share this method with them- I want as many people as possible to benefit from this!

And even though the effect might be small at first… it builds up over time. Like the butterfly flapping its wings that causes a tornado in the distant future – swapping out your limiting belief for an empowering one will have bigger and bigger positive consequences as you go through life!

“How a group names its God has critical consequences, for the symbol of the divine organizes every other aspect of a religious system,” says well-known controversial author and Catholic theologian, sister Elizabeth Johnson in her 2000 presentation at Boardman Lectureship in Christian Ethics at The University of Pennsylvania. The lecture she was delivering was titled, “Naming God She: The Theological Implications.” I have included the Introduction from her lecture and its Conclusion. If you wish to read the entire address (well worth the time and about 20 pages in length), click here. If you want more than this, I suggest you try reading one of her books. Enjoy!An illustration depicting a view of the night sky just before the predicted merger between our Milky Way galaxy, left, and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. Photo by NASA/AP

Introduction:

During the last decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the new sound of theologically trained women’s voices has been heard in the field of theology. Diverse in cultures, intellectual perspectives, and religious traditions, these voices are making contributions that are inevitably challenging to classical, patriarchal norms, but also surprisingly enriching to the core task of seeking understanding about matters of faith. One of the major areas where women have labored is central to any articulation of theology, namely, the image and concept of the divine, the One who is source, sustaining and saving power, and goal of the world, whom people call God. The importance of this work can hardly be overestimated.Continue Reading

Any methodology for developing patience requires a multi-tiered approach. As discussed earlier, we need skills that are immediately accessible for those moments when life is intolerably inefficient, unjust, unfair, or abusive; those moments when impatience or anger quickly arise within us. Concurrently, we need an introspective practice such as meditation so that we can gain a greater understanding of our internal experiences, i.e., thoughts and feelings. This part of our practice is not so much about the actual events happening around and within us, but rather about how we relate to those events. Through this type of introspection we become more in touch with our thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they arise so that we don’t react while in the throes of impatience or anger. This objective, nonjudgmental, nonattached awareness is the practice of mindfulness and it is the ground for becoming a truly patient person.

In the Satipatthana Sutta (The Discourse on the Establishment of Mindfulness) specific instruction is offered for practicing mindfulness. One should go to a quiet place, sit down in the cross- legged (lotus) position, and gently but firmly establish mindful awareness. Specifically, “Having gone to the forest or the root of a tree or to an empty place, one sits down with their legs crossed, keeps their body erect and their mindfulness alert.” One would, over time, come to see that mindfulness keeps the mind from wandering and dispels confusion. We all experience mindful moments fairly frequently. The development of mindfulness as a practice involves knowing when mindfulness occurs and learning to encourage more frequent mindful moments.

It is significant to understand mindfulness as a wholesomequality (to use the Buddhist terminology) and to understand what a wholesome and an unwholesome quality (such as greed, hatred, or delusion) cannot exist on a conscious level in the same moment. It can appear as if they do because there can be many factors at play in the mind (motivations, intentions, and so forth) but in the exact moment of commencing an action only one intention can be at the fore. The practice of mindfulness offers us a clear and accurate reading of our “state of mind” before we act in a given situation. As taught in the Satipatthana Sutta, mindfulness meditation is developed by becoming aware of when mindfulness is present and when it is not. For the person working on developing a level of patience that is deep and easeful, this is an invaluable practice.

That doesn’t mean perfect, saintly, or one who can walk on the waters of the Ganges, but one who remains calm and dignified in the most trying of circumstances. Impatience or anger can still arise, and undoubtedly will, but we have learned to be mindful of our feelings as they arise so we can calmly observe them rather than react to them. In that way we don’t exacerbate what may already be a difficult situation. When we undertake this type of introspection, mindfulness is necessary because it is the quality that helps us maintain awareness of the specific occurrences arising in the moment. Developing true patience is therefore accomplished through quiet self- examination combined with integrative experience with others. This is the development of patience through insight, wisdom, and compassion. This is theart of peaceful living.

Excerpted from Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living by Allan Lokos. Copyright 2012 Allan Lokos. Excerpted by permission of Penguin Group.

Welcome!

I serve as the Christian Science Committee on Publication for New Mexico. The goal is to share a spiritual perspective on health and to engage in conversation while exploring how thought impacts health. Wayne Hicks 505-235-6824 Newmexico@compub.org

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